


Running All the Red Lights

by makothecat



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Eddie and Myra's dumpsterfire wedding, F/M, M/M, Richie Tozier is Bad at Feelings, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, no memory loss, they're in their early 30s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:47:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22600456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makothecat/pseuds/makothecat
Summary: Eddie and Myra are getting married within the week. But his bachelor's party, planned by one Richie Tozier, takes a homoerotic turn which really should've been blocked off, this road looks hazardous. What is that, in the distance? The wedding venue on fire? Cool, cool. Can we turn around? No? Well fuck.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Myra Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 21
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

“Hold on, wait,” Richie says, swiping a hand down the chest suspended above him. 

Eddie does. “Are you okay?” He asks, his hesitation and genuine concern out of place in this heat-of-the-moment.

The other almost wants to say so, just to keep the flow going. It’s been steadily escalating all night, a whirlwind that didn’t offer the time to really think. That’s what this was about, wasn’t it? They’d both decided they were not going to think about it, just do it, with little to no consideration for how _wrong_ it is. Except that Richie had considered that, and was simply choosing to ignore it. 

But it’s been a minute since he’s done this. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” He says, feeling the uncomfortable damp of sweat on the pillow when he shifts his shoulders. “It’s good, it’s good, just gimme a second.” 

Eddie dips his head to kiss him while they wait it out. His breathing is shaky, he’s trying hard to be patient. It’s been a while, for him, too, clearly. Maybe this is even his first time with another man. 

Richie pulls him closer by the back of his neck, skates the other hand down Eddie’s back. Gripping lamely at the top of his buttcheek, rocking their hips together. The movement pushed Eddie harder into him, Richie moaning into the next kiss. 

Eddie took it to heart, slowly beginning to thrust. Richie’s hands wandered, settling on his best friend’s shoulder blades. He wanted to dig his nails in, wanted to leave marks. He wanted, selfishly, for her to see how much Eddie didn’t really love her. 

The shallow movements became deeper, faster, an already lube-slick hand wrapping around Richie’s cock and halfheartedly pumping. Maybe not Eddie’s first time with another man. 

Experience with dick or not, Eddie’s thrusts are fluid and hard, syncing with the rock of Richie’s hips. It’s everything his teenage self ever dreamed of from Eddie and more: warm pants on his skin and moans of his name and when Rich whines “Fuck me,” Eddie obliges and really fucking pounds him. Holding him down by hitched-up thighs, the bed creaking with the force. 

Too soon, it’s over. With Eddie relentless on his prostate, so goddamn deep in this position, the next time he reaches a hand between them Richie is coming at the slightest stroke. Eddie follows not long after, rolling his hips hard into Richie while he falls over the edge. 

Eds is either too considerate or possibly grossed out to lay his full weight on Richie while they recover. Instead he whimpers as he pulls out and rolls onto the vacant side of the bed, chest heaving like the asthmatic fuck he’s always pretended to be. But if he really was he wouldn’t have been able to work up that sheen of sweat, would he? Kid forgets who he’s supposed to be when he gets worked up. 

Always has. 

He looks happy. He looks like he enjoyed himself. May as well ruin it, right?

Eddie suddenly turns his head, about to say something himself when it’s already falling out of Richie’s dumb mouth. 

“Are you still gonna marry her?” He spews that word vomit all over their nice, post-coital moment. Eddie’s mouth snaps shut. 

After what feels like an eternity, wherein Richie lacks his glasses to fiddle with - he nervously picks at the scar on his palm, instead; “It’s kinda late to ask that, isn’t it?” Eddie says, having turned his head back to stare straight ahead, at nothing. “It’s in three days.” Making that dumb, cute, furrowed-brow face. 

The answer hurts. But Richie has never possessed much of self-preservation instinct, really. “We just fucked,” 

“No shit.” Eddie retorts, sighing as he pulls himself up so his elbows are on his knees. 

Richie snatches his glasses off the hotel nightstand and shoves them on to commit the image to memory. The little rolls on Eddie’s sides when he curls like that. The way his leg hair lays, his taught calves, his bony feet. His ringless finger. Maybe he’ll be grateful for that decision later, but now Eddie’s looking frustrated and it’s like a knife twisting in his gut. He might cry. 

“That’s kinda fucked up,” Richie rasps. Which part? Fucking your best friend? Fucking your best friend who is also a dude? Fucking your best friend who is also a dude, when you’re engaged? “I mean-”

“I’m not sober enough to talk about this, Rich.” Eddie interrupts him, firm. They’re not that drunk, but Eds clearly needs an excuse. He looks at Richie and Richie instinctively looks away from him. _Climb back in that closet. You’ve had enough fresh air._

“Okay,” Richie says quietly, because he’s worried his voice will break. 

Eddie nods in his peripheral vision. “ ‘Talk about it in the morning?” He sort of asks, sort of just states. Richie shrugs, back to picking at his palm. 

They stay like that a while, naked beside each other but all the sexual tension gone. Eddie’s staring at Richie. Richie is determined not to look at him. Eventually, Richie wins. Eddie pulls the flat sheet up to get under it. 

“I’m gonna clean up.” Richie says, when he gets up and Eddie asks where he’s going. He goes straight into the bathroom, closing the door. Fiddles with the unfamiliar knobs until he has the shower on full blast so he can sob just a little bit, if he’s quiet about it. 

He doesn’t get in the shower at first, stupidly wishing to keep whatever remnants of this that he can. But he’s standing now, leaning over the sink in case he pukes, and it’s dripping down his thighs anyway. 

When he finally leaves the bathroom in the provided terry cloth robe, it’s 4:49 AM and Eddie is asleep, having turned the lights off, his back to Richie. 

Rich quietly hunts down his clothes in the dark. Picks his phone up off the nightstand, gets dressed and hangs the robe back up in the bathroom. Carefully holds the lever while he closes the door to leave Eddie’s suite so it doesn’t slam like it had earlier that night. 

Walking away he looks through his messages, and thinks to bother Stan on the far end of the hall. But he doesn’t answer when Richie texts him, so he must not be awake. Rich doesn’t want to burden anyone else further. 

Maybe he shouldn’t be a burden here at all. 

Eddie is going through with it. He’s going to get married, to a woman. _That_ woman, who is Richie is vaguely convinced is his mom in a blonde wig with a sick new skincare routine. He gave Eds all he had and he’s still gonna do it. 

When he gets back to his room, he falls back on the bed and stares at the ceiling fan. Everything hurts, and no one is going to come help him fix it. He feels like he should be used to that, but something about this is all consuming. Eddie’s always been a crack in his ability to laugh it off. 

Bill would be a much better choice of best man than him. Myra wasn’t even letting Richie give a speech, anyway - she’d disproved of some things he’d said at Stan and Patty’s wedding, and pulled him aside when Eddie asked him to be in the party in the first place. What was the point of being the best man? Getting to plan the bachelor party? Lot of fucking good that did. Bill would be a way better best man. Eddie has always looked up to him. He wouldn’t have fucked the groom. 

Richie must fall asleep at some point, because next thing he knows it’s 7AM and Ben is knocking on his door. He grumbles, peeling himself off the bed, still haphazardly dressed in the jeans and blazer he’d picked up off Eddie’s floor, his button down shirt not even closed. 

Richie didn’t get drunk last night. He’d had a couple for courage once the situation had developed but wanted to know what he was doing. Despite this, Ben tells him to stop milking his hangover and come down for a rubbery continental breakfast. In an ever-so-him way, with that gentle voice and otherworldly patience behind the jovial tone. He’s a good friend. He wouldn’t have fucked the groom, either. 

“Gimme a few, I’ll be down,” Richie said, not meeting Ben’s soft, too understanding eyes. Ben relents and leaves him. Richie throws his suitcase together. 

He’s not one of those people who go for the stairs over the elevator. Especially the morning after a hard fuck. But he is today, out of necessity. His ass hates him for it, but he doesn’t want to see any of the other losers. 

It’s entirely childish, peeking out of the stairway door into the breakfast area. Even more so rushing past, spotting Mike and all his charisma over by a window. Eddie is already there, sat at the head of the table. His back to Richie again. If anyone notices him, they don’t call him out or anything. 

He makes it to the desk. Checks out. Goes out the side entrance so he doesn’t need to pass the bachelor party table again. 

It’s not long before his phone is being blown up by everyone but Eddie. 

\------

By the time he’s through security, he’s been contacted by all of the losers, including Bev, who isn’t even in the bridal party. 

They range from _WHAT THE FUCK RICHARD??_ to _r u ok_ to _Where the hell are you?_

He’s boarding when he decides to answer Stan. He’s a judgmental old fart. But he’s the only person in the world whose known Richie was into guys almost as long as he has. It was awful when it happened, he’d just guessed it and outright asked. It had freaked Richie out, but Stan had promised it wasn’t obvious, insisting that he was just painfully over-exposed to the evidence. And he’d kept the secret for like nineteen years now, even if he did regularly tell Richie how stupid that was. 

_some shit happened with eds think it’s better if i just go_

He sends it and then turns his phone off, even though the reply is already incoming before the screen goes black. He’ll look at it in Chicago. 

The flight isn’t a long one, but he falls back asleep. Wakes up to the person in the window seat complaining that she’s trapped by his Ent-y legs. Richie blurrily stumbles out into the isle, and then out of the plane behind her. 

As he’s walking out to catch a taxi, he takes a deep breath and turns his phone back on. 

It’s pretty much a shitshow. 

He left, what, six hours ago? 

Now he’s been contacted by _everyone._ Myra, her bridesmaids, one of her bridesmaids’ boyfriends, Patty, Eddie’s mom, _his_ mom. Still nothing from Eddie, himself, though. 

His poor phone is suffering, two days into no charge and bombarded by ignored phone calls and a mountain of unopened texts that Richie is slowly filing through. It finally dies while he’s in a cab headed home. In the middle of reading a rant from Myra’s mother, who, for a lady he’d met all of twice, had turned on him pretty much immediately. It’d be funny if it was happening to someone else, if he was looking at it as a screenshot on Reddit. 

When he gets to his apartment, where it’s lonely and too quiet, he plugs that corpse in and changes out of his shitty blazer. Turns the TV on to some cooking show and plants himself on the couch, eventually falling asleep to the sounds of Anne Burrell berating bad cooks and the buzzing of his cellphone on the table.


	2. Chapter 2

Eddie doesn’t know what to do about this. 

Richie can get weird about stuff. He gets, like, deeply offended at the strangest things. And Eddie understands that this isn’t exactly something small, but does he really need to have this whole conversation right now? 

Excuse the fuck out of him for needing a night to process this. He’s only gone his whole life entirely confused by the way Richie makes him feel. It’s not as though the other losers didn’t have their own special place in his heart, but he’s not three days out from his wedding cheating on his wife-to-be with anyone else. 

There was a way about Richie that just left him utterly stupid. His teasing and voices, and the times he would physically pick Eddie up just because he could, back when he could. The smile he gave Eddie when he arrived in New York, the first time in a year they’d seen each other in person, and how they just fell back together as if they hadn’t spent a day apart. It made him happy, it made him mad at himself. Rich was like that with everyone, wasn’t he? That’s the kind of person he is, he’s big and goofy and he makes you comfortable, and Eddie has been misinterpreting it their entire friendship. 

He never thought he’d experience the things he has tonight, even if he has been imagining them ever since he popped a boner watching his buddy do pull-ups in gym class. Never considered the possibility of it happening in real life, so when Richie made the first move, he’d been fucking elated and everything else just kind of fell out of his head. Until Richie had asked that question, he’d been riding high. 

Eddie hears the shower turn on. He’d like one, too, but Richie definitely needs it more than he does. Instead, Eddie cleans up with some hand wipes he’d been teased for bringing - “Do you know how dirty hotels are? Do you know how disgusting the lightswitch probably is?” - and turns off the bedside lamp, getting comfortable in bed. 

But he can’t fall asleep, so when Richie finally gets out of the bathroom, he’s thinking of getting up and taking a shower anyway. That thought stops in its tracks, though, when he hears the light whip of clothing snatched off the floor. Richie comes over to the other side of the bed, into Eddie’s view, uncharacteristically quiet and grabs his underwear. 

Then he fucking...leaves? The door doesn’t slam or anything but Eddie can hear the hinges move, the click of the lock. 

What the fuck? 

Eddie sits up abruptly, glaring at the door like it was the object’s fault. 

Should he go after Richie? 

Usually he needs space when he gets like this, but tonight it feels like an ultimatum. 

Creature of habit, Eddie decides on _space._ Sometimes nobody can tell Richie a damn thing. You have to let him work it out on his own. 

The decision is made, but that doesn’t mean Eddie can sleep. He lies awake, flopping around in the bed like an anxious fish. He’s on his stomach, hugging the pillow Richie had laid on because his had gotten too hot and definitely for no other reason, when someone knocks on the door. 

It’s 6:30. The someone turns out to be Mike. Eddie still needs a shower. And to throw away the sad nearly empty lube left out on the nightstand, laying on its side in the ravaged open CVS bag it’d come back to the hotel with them in. 

There’s no other evidence, really, besides a couple nail-curve scratches on his back that he sees when he starts the shower. The bathrobe is damp. Richie must have used it. 

He’s lost in his thoughts in the stream of water. Who is he supposed to go to first? It _is_ fucked up, and there is no foreseeable outcome that ended without ruining an entire relationship. Was he supposed to get married, because after all, it was a one-night stand, however important the person it was with, and weddings are expensive as hell? Was he supposed to call it off with everyone in town and together already, because his often badly-timed teenage hardons had come to fruition? Why did Richie leave this morning? Was it not..what Eddie thought it was? Was it just fun for Richie? Maybe he’d never been with a guy before, and this was him trying something with someone he trusts. But then, why the question? Why did Richie leaving feel like a sack of bricks being thrown mercilessly on his chest? 

He has half a mind to swing by Richie’s room, but when steps out of his, Ben is there, a blip at the end of the hall. So instead, Eddie slinks away, and holds the elevator for Ben when he comes jogging towards it. 

“‘Sup with Rich?” Eddie asked, too nonchalant. 

Ben shrugs. “Said he’ll be down in a minute. He’s still in his clothes from last night,” He chuckles, “looks like he just passed out when he got here. I’m surprised you didn’t follow him in and make him sleep on his side so he couldn’t choke on vomit.” 

Eddie says nothing, but starts when Ben adds, “Did he come back with someone? When did he get that hickey?” There is more awkward silence, but before Ben can build a bridge between the events, Eddie finally speaks up. 

“Probably gave it to himself, like back in high school,” He jokes badly, but Ben snorts. “I’m sure we’ll hear all about her at breakfast.” 

The elevator dings, lets them out, and they join Stan and Mike at a table by a window. Bill has excused himself for a phone call. The others go through the buffet line, but Eddie tells them he’ll wait for Richie to come down and join them, hoping to get a moment alone to arrange a time they could talk. 

But he doesn’t join them. Not five minutes, ten minutes, or a half hour later. Ben is getting seriously concerned about the choking-on-his-own-vomit point he’d made earlier. Stan says he got a text from him at like 5AM asking if he was up. Mike goes to check on him. 

When he doesn’t answer the door, it quickly turns into calling him, and then going to the front desk and asking them to call his room. The receptionist’s polite, “Sorry, but that guest has checked out.” hits Eddie like a truck. 

And then everyone is trying to find Richie. They enlist Bev, wondering if they had done something as a group to make him fuck off. Ben is spiraling in guilt, saying things like “I knew he didn’t seem right,” and “he wouldn’t even look me in the eye,”. Bill is trying to calm everyone down, and latches onto this hickey-and-5AM-text theory, saying he probably just met someone and is taking her out for breakfast. As if Richie is _that_ kind of guy, who takes a stranger out for breakfast over hanging out with his friends. 

Eddie probably looks devastated, and that might be what he is, but not because he’s two days away from his wedding and his best man is missing. 

Because he feels like he made the wrong choice. 

\-------

A couple hours into Operation: Find Richie, Stan pulls Eddie aside. 

“What happened with you two?” He asks bluntly. 

Eddie frowns. Is Stan fucking omniscient now?

Apparently so, because he rolls his eyes. “Richie texted me. He said something happened and thought it would be better if he left.”

“Nothing,” Eddie says, on reflex. He likes to think he’s pretty okay at lying. He spent a good portion of his childhood being places his mother would never have given him permission to be. He hid pills under his tongue instead of swallowing them. He proposed to Myra, tells her he loves her and that his day was fine every single day. 

But lying to the women in his life is no preparation at all for lying to Stanley Uris. 

“What happened?” Stan repeats, unphased. 

Eddie puts on his _I swear, mommy!_ face and does the same. “Nothing.” He says, and he knows Stan doesn’t believe him, but he does leave it alone, which is somehow scarier. 

Eventually, Mike volunteers the idea that they need to tell the bride. Eddie is elected to do this, obviously. There is a lot of stalling and typing then backspacing before he finally sends out 

_We can’t find Richie_

During the ensuing phone call, all he had to offer were his “I don’t know”s. 

It feels like he’s experiencing this through a pane of glass, like he’s a ghost, a fly on the wall watching this all go down. He’s just letting everyone do everything for him. Myra is angry for him, even asking for Maggie Tozier’s phone number. No doubt attacking Richie’s phone with all the man power she had at her disposal, which was considerable with five bridesmaids, her mother, and herself. His mother was frazzled for him, ranting about how unreliable that boy has always been. The losers are concerned for both of them, and run through a million scenarios - maybe he went out for fresh air and got hit by a car! Should we check the hospitals? What if the girl he supposedly brought back was part of a rouse, and he was forced to check out and is now being driven around from ATM to ATM? 

All Eddie contributes to that is a joke about Richie being so annoying his captures would surely let him go a few miles down the road. No one laughs. 

Stan, however, keeps giving him pensive glances. He hasn’t told everyone that Richie answered him. He can’t out Eddie without outing himself. So he seems to be trying to bully Eddie into admitting it with reproachful looks. He has Patty call Richie, as if he’s trying to appear to be doing something productive. 

Most importantly, no one even asks Eddie to call him, or text him, or anything. They periodically offer “It’ll be okay”s, and remind him to eat and drink but no one demands anything of him. 

Sooner than he’d like, Myra is posing that her brother-in-law Jared stand in. Supposedly about the same height on only slightly heavier than Richie, he could maybe fit in Rich’s suit if they could find it. The Operation fizzles out from Find Richie to damage control. Bill and Ben still need haircuts. Mike needs to pick up his pants from the dry cleaner, because they were far wrinklier than expected when he arrived from Maine. Stan is picking up Patty, who had work yesterday and couldn’t come down at the same time as her husband. Life has to go on, the immediate results of Eddie’s tryst be damned. 

It all happened so fast, and Eddie finds himself dutifully calling the florist for last minute adjustments, and running to Macy’s for a white button-up shirt for Jared. Then back to Macy’s because, even though Mike had helpfully found Richie’s suit still in Eddie’s closet when he went to hang his own up, it doesn’t fit, even a little bit. They won’t be able to salvage anything but the emoji-yellow suspenders, tie, and socks. 

Never had it occurred to him to have a back-up best man, because 1.) he didn’t think he was going to fuck Richie at his bachelor's party and 2.) why else would he need one? But Bill is gracelessly shoved into the role, fancy boutonniere and all. Myra asks him to write a speech, after expressly stating _no speeches_ earlier in the planning. And yeah, Bill’s a writer, he can probably shit out some lovely prose. But talk about putting a guy on the spot. 

The sun sets on an exhausting day with no answers. Eddie feels like he’s had his dick in his hands the entire time. He’s in too deep, doesn’t know what to do about anything. All he knows, for sure, is that he made bad decisions. 

He has known for pretty much their entire relationship that he doesn’t love Myra in a romantic way. But he’d convinced himself that it didn't matter. Myra was a safe, secure choice, and he didn’t dislike her. She does all the things good wives do, she takes care of him, she has plans for them. They don’t argue an extraordinary amount, she’s not always mean when they do. She’s not a bad person, and he doesn’t want to hurt her. But he could certainly live without her, in a way that he could absolutely not live without Richie. 

It took all goddamn day to catch up to him. It took lying in bed with Myra, in their apartment filled with things she likes. Bedding she chose, a firm mattress that was good for her back. Does he really like anything about this life? He doesn’t hate it, no - but does he like it? 

Most men his age would be happy with this, right?

Why can’t he be?

Why does Richie make it so hard to pretend he is? 

Eddie can’t sleep, again. To the rest of the world, he must look like a stressed out groom, worried about his asshole friend ruining their bridal party’s symmetry and color scheme, which was frankly, awful anyway, because Jared’s hurriedly-bought suit wasn’t exactly the same shade of gray that everyone else’s was. No one would look at him and see that he’s having an entire identity crisis. 

When Myra is deep in slumber, he quietly takes his phone into the bathroom. He calls Richie. 

Richie doesn’t answer, but he does have a voicemail. 

“Hey, Rich,” Eddie says, unsure of himself. It’s not like he’d planned anything to say. The triage room of his brain was in chaos. “Can you call me back?” Are the words he finds, “I’m sorry,”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you aren't here for grown men crying, idk what to tell you.

Richie doesn’t know what time it is when he wakes up. Late enough that there are infomercials on, and he is briefly captivated by a blurry giant cupcake pan. When it starts over again, he snaps out of it and pats himself down, but his phone is still on his kitchen table. 

He groans, remembering exactly what his current circumstances are; ah yes, you hooked up with the spaghetti man and have subsequently run away from your problems, because you are not a real adult. And now you’re sleeping on your couch, your lullabies sung by Vince the ShamWow guy. 

Fucking wonderful. 

His old ass back cracks and complains when he gets up. Thankfully his glasses don’t follow suit, because he kicks them from the place they’ve fallen instead of stepping on them. More nagging from the back when he swoops to grab them, yawning and entirely unattractive in this moment. 

Staring the phone down, the green light blinking to indicate unanswered attempts at contact, Richie decides he needs alcohol for this. All he’s got is a nearly empty bottle of vodka in the freezer, but that will have to do. 

First he scrolls through the missed calls, not really looking, just to get that number off his screen. Next come the texts, which he apparently has a bright red 99+ of. Honestly, should he just get a new phone? 

He’s feeling like shit again fairly quickly. Myra’s mother’s rant had continued long after where he’d left off, and her daughter didn’t fall far from the tree. He thought YouTube comments had totally desensitized him, but Myra and her posse give that idea a run for its money. 

His posse is, for the most part, much kinder. Ben seems really worried, another blanket of guilt laid on Richie’s shoulders. Bev flip-flops between good cop and bad cop, but her bad cop isn’t really impressive after the wrath of the bridesmaids. He’s going through Mike’s thread when out of nowhere, his phone rings. It’s Eddie. 

Surprised, Richie holds the thing out at arm’s length, like it shocked him. It feels like a lifetime before it stops ringing. One more voicemail joins his apparent 32. 

He _should_ get a new phone. He should chuck this one out his 14th-story window, or toss it in the sink and turn the garbage disposal on. Maybe he should go right after it. Anything would be better than listening to Eddie reject him again. He can hear Vince the ShamWow guy in his head: “Now on your voicemail! So you can listen to it on repeat while you self-mutilate! Takes you right back to the Derry High bathroom stall!” 

It’s 3AM. Eddie is getting married at 5PM tomorrow. All he has to do is make it through the next 38 hours. He’ll listen to that voicemail in 38 hours. 

\-------

Eddie doesn’t so much wake up as he does just open his eyes the morning before his wedding. He never went to sleep. 

Myra says he looks “Just awful,” in her sing-songy concerned voice, almost like she’s happy about it, and spends a good bit of the morning fussing over him. They should get a puppy, or pregnant, or something, so she has something else to smother. 

_No_ that tired, defiant part of him intrudes on his regular thoughts, _when Richie calls back, I’m not gonna want to be forced back here for a custody battle._

Over the hypothetical dog or hypothetical child, he doesn’t know. 

Except, Rich doesn’t call him back. He doesn’t text him. Eddie even checks his email - maybe he doesn’t want Myra to see Eddie’s phone ring? But there’s nothing. 

He is increasingly miserable, and, since he can’t exactly tell anyone why, irritable. 

The day goes pretty terribly. Eddie’s slowly finding his voice, and is nothing but annoying about it. Myra has decided it’s going to be a work-horse day, every pair of hands at their disposal is doing something. Made all the worse by the way she shuts down every mention of hearing from Richie. 

Wrapping little yellow ribbon around bottles of bubbles, he snaps at a bridesmaid for being only slightly careless with scissors. Dividing vendor tips with Myra, they go back and forth on amounts. He coldly tells Bill, “It’s fine, whatever you’re doing is fine,” when the newly-appointed best man presents him with a quickly-written note. Beverly arrives with boutonnieres that need to be put in the refrigerator, which they have of course, forgotten to make space in, and he gets to bitch about that while they do it. 

He’s being an asshole with his frustration, arguing just to argue. The losers, minus Richie, plus Patricia, are sitting around Eddie’s kitchen island hot-gluing beads to centerpiece vases - it’d been done once before, but after taking them out it was discovered many had fallen off - late into the afternoon. Ben quietly brings up their missing friend, and still, no one has heard from him. Stan stares Eddie down again, so when Patty just bumps his chair getting up, profusely sorry, he glares at her and _Stan_ snaps at _him._

It’s like he blacks out, because after Stan stands up, even though he can see he’s yelling, Eddie’s hearing doesn’t fade back in until “-just because you don’t like _your_ wife!” 

Eddie feels his face fall completely apart, and Stan’s softens immediately, despite the fact that he’s got Patty pulled around to his side of the island like he’s protecting her from something. 

“All I’m saying is you don’t get to be a dick just because you’re upset,” He retcons, volume lowered but tone still firm. 

Eddie...doesn’t like to cry in front of people. He hasn’t done it since he was a kid. Not even when a fucking space clown tried to eat him. So when he feels a tremble in his jaw he goes for the first exit; which is out the sliding kitchen door, onto the back porch. 

He collapses on the steps and just cries, like a fucking child. He knows the losers can still see him, hears chairs scrape and muffled talking, and the embarrassment just frustrates him more, which makes him cry more. 

Just as he calms down, wiping his face with a snotty sleeve, because he is apparently, an actual fucking toddler, the door opens and it starts up again. 

“I didn’t mean to be rude to Pats, I’m sorry!” Eddie chokes out. But it’s not Stan, it’s Bev. She gives him an indulgently normal grin when he turns around, as if she’s not looking at a thirty-two-year-old man with red eyes and puffy cheeks. 

“I’ll be sure to tell her,” she says, plunking down on the step next to him. She wraps her arms around him, her head resting on his shoulder, and just lets him recoup. 

Eddie is exhausted, and feels like an absolute mess. He rests his head on top of Bev’s. “I didn’t mean to be such a dick.” 

She pats his shoulder, shrugging a little. “I don’t believe you, but accept your apology,” They laugh together, weak and out of it, as if they’re high. Then she asks, “What happened between you and Richie? Stan told us,” 

He sighs. Unlike with Richie, his feelings for Bev have always been straightforward, with only a small hiccup when they first met, because _a girl saw me in my underwear and I saw her in hers._ She is a pillar of common sense that this group of idiots desperately needs, coming from a point of view none of them could ever have. Eddie feels like, where Stan is clearly Richie’s confidant, Bev is sort of like his, because she knows when something is a real problem and when to start taking things seriously. 

“We had sex,” He manages to say, but she doesn’t get to respond. The door slides open again with a sharp noise, and Myra is here to interrupt. 

She puts on a super fake smile. “We’re all done, everyone is headed out!” She announces, looking pointedly at Bev. 

Myra has never really been comfortable with their friendship. Beverly is super awesome, successful in her career, and conventionally attractive. And has, after an outburst, come out alone to comfort Myra’s fiance. She feels strongly that men and women can’t be “just friends”. 

If only she knew the threat really lies with a 6’1 bespectacled comedian who sometimes straight up smells like Doritos. 

He sustains a massive loss, wishing everyone goodbye. Beverly wasn’t given time to digest the information she’d been given, and has no advice. She does say she’ll text him later. He also has to say sorry to Patty, during which Stan hovers over her shoulder, like a teacher facilitating a negotiation between students. Mike and Ben offer stilted words of comfort, brought up to speed as much as anyone else now, but clearly conflicted because whatever happened, it was so obviously Eddie’s fault. 

Bill offers to stay behind, help out with anything else. But Myra assures them everything is fine, and they’ll see each other in the morning. He gets an apology, too, and it makes Eddie feel a little better when Bill claps a hand on his shoulder and assures him, “No offense taken,” 

When they’re all gone, Myra tries to grill him about the things Stanley said. She even plucks his phone out of his hands when he picks it up, demanding to know what it meant. And when he doesn’t know, she sighs and wonders aloud why he even likes those people. 

All Eddie really cares about is getting his phone back, and he says what he has to in order to obtain it. “ _I’ve known Stan since we were kids, he’s just overprotective, we’re from a really shitty small town and we’ve been through a lot together. It’s not a big deal. Can I have my phone? Jared asked me for directions to the dressing room at the golf club earlier_.” 

There’s still stuff to do, because they weren’t really all done, Myra just wanted everyone to leave. And when that stuff is done, they need to load it into Myra’s car. She’ll take everything to her mom’s, where she’ll stay tonight. Her mom, sister and aunt will take the shit and decorate the room tomorrow morning. 

Beverly doesn’t text him at all in the time that takes - is there something wrong with his fucking service? What the hell? Why is no one talking to him? 

When she does, he doesn’t get to read it right away. His phone is set down on the TV stand, safe from the risks of hauling boxes of bubbles and beaded vases and tulle bunting down concrete steps. And he’s not paying attention, because Myra is draping herself over him, offering a preview of her honeymoon lingerie. 

He’s the wrong kind of worked up about it, suddenly very aware of minuscule nail scratches, and of how especially guilty he would feel having to think about someone else to get it up. 

She’s clearly disappointed at his suggestion that they hold off, even when he adds, “It’ll be more special that way.” 

The look in her eye when she leaves is almost suspicious.


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as they get in the car, Ben asks what’s up. Beverly may or may not have fumbled through their goodbyes on the customer service setting she developed working at JCPenney in college. Because, what? 

“Richie and Eddie fucked,” she says, not even making Ben try. She needs _help_ to deal with this. 

If he’s as shocked as she is, he doesn’t show it. He just says “Oh,” and starts driving. “Do you wanna stop for dinner?” 

She wants to scream ‘Did you even hear me?’ but she knows he did. Ben is just too sensible to talk about it while driving, the most zen person in their immediate circle. They end up at a pizza place, and after ordering drinks, he finally addresses the topic.

“How do you know for sure? They’re always touchy feely with each other. You should’ve seen them at the bachelor party, Eddie was pretty much in Richie’s lap.” Ben says, munching on a breadstick from the basket thrust upon their table by the busy waitress. 

“Eddie just told me.” Bev says, having trouble focusing on the menu. 

Yes, they have always been annoyingly involved in each other. Eddie crammed himself into that shitty hammock with Richie long after it should've been comfortable. They shared ice cream and test answers and comics, despite _So many mouth germs!! I’m not getting kicked out of school for you!! No way, that’s a first edition!!_ Honestly, if they’d just hooked up as teenagers or young adults Bev wouldn’t have been surprised in any way, shape, or form - it may have even spared the rest of them some really awkward tension at sleepovers, where one or the other needed an extra few minutes after the movie to recover from the effects of being close together, under a blanket with Eddie’s terrified grabby hands and Richie’s bad sex jokes and pet names. But they’re both exquisitely stupid, so they didn’t get together as teenagers or young adults. They got together less than a week before Eddie is supposed to marry someone one. 

Ben nods sagely. “That is excellent proof,” Bev laughs, and the waitress comes back around to take their order of a cauliflower crust pizza. “So, did something go wrong? I mean, it must have if Eddie’s having a mental breakdown and Richie left.” 

Beverly shrugs. “I have no details. I just know they fucked.” 

“Helpful,” Ben says, grinning when she sticks her tongue out at him. Then he sighs. “Richie’s still not answering. I texted him at Eddie’s.” There’s silence, with Bev tracing the rim of her glass. “Has he posted anything on social media?”

\-------

The growing numbers at the bottom of his screen bother the fuck out of Richie, but he ignores them. He’s got the next couple days free. Maybe he should go grocery shopping, or eat something, drink some water? Do anything but sleep and watch tv? In a moment of false productivity, all he accomplishes is opening Twitter, where today, his comedy leans darker and meaner than usual. It’s the only time people ever ask what the fuck is wrong with him. 

When his stomach gurgles angrily, he gives in and gets up. That gets him all the way to the kitchen, but he has no food, since he thought he’d be gone longer. Richie groans out loud to no one, and amps himself up to go outside and see real people.

Maybe the sweatpants, moccasin slippers, and wrinkly thermal don’t really say _effort,_ but damn if it doesn’t take a lot to get him out there. The Super Walmart calls to him, offering cheap ramen but also hard liquor. There’s a Wendy’s across the street, too, where he finally gets something to eat. 

Wandering around the store eating spicy chicken nuggets, Richie’s phone buzzes - the barrage had fizzled out for the most part, today he’s only gotten a perfectly digestible dozen texts. He pulls it from his pocket and checks it out of habit. 

It’s 4PM. 

_Are you okay? Stan told us something happened, I’m sorry I didn’t ask you the other morning. We’re worried about you, just want to know if you’re all good._

Ben draws a pout out of him, so frayed and unstable at this point he’s tearing up in front of the frozen vegetables. 

Richie feels like such a shit for causing so much trouble. He really doesn’t deserve any of them. They shouldn’t have to put up with him. 

He definitely looks like an insane person right now, so maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that someone takes a picture of him. Richie isn’t terribly famous. He has one Netflix special and a block on the radio when he’s not on “vacation”. He doesn’t get recognized a whole lot. But when he does, it is always when he looks like absolute shit. 

_way to kick a bitch when hes down_ he ats the person who posted it when he gets home and discovers what has happened. It’s been a hot minute since the internet accused him of having a drug habit, so naturally that’s where the thread goes. 

He pops the cap off his Walmart tequila and settles into his sad evening, with every intention of drinking enough that he won’t wake up until Eddie is married. 

Richie’s good and toasted by the time Beverly calls, so he picks up.

\-------

If you’ve ever seen any code-cracking, conspiracy unraveling scene in a movie, you have a great idea of how the losers look right now, gathered around Bill’s hotel room coffee table after Richie, at long last, answers a goddamn call. All that’s missing is a strategically coffee-stained map splayed across the particle board surface, but drafts of Bill’s stilted speech are standing in well. 

“Heeeey, whassup,” He’d greeted Bev, and that should’ve been a hint that he was drinking. But she went on to try to explain how Eddie’s messed up right now, only to be interrupted by, “Bevvy, I fucked up s-so fucking hard,” and what may very well be sobbing. 

“Basically, he’s sloshed, he’s definitely not driving back here or getting let onto a plane.” Beverly tells the others. 

A title card with the words _Get the Dumbasses Back Together_ would not be out of place, here. 

“We told him to try to sleep it off, but there’s no way of knowing he actually is.” Ben volunteers. 

“I swear, every time Richie does anything in public, people think he’s a goddamn crackhead.” Stan says from his position on the back of the couch, showing Mike, who is sitting below him, the picture of Richie at a store that’s going around. He has one bottle of tequila, a Wendy’s bag, and a bulk box of ramen in his cart. Something frozen in one hand, presumably his phone in the other, and a big obvious hickey just to the side of his Adam’s apple. 

Mike laughs pitifully, “He’s looked worse,” and Stan nudges his shoulder without any real fire to the gesture. 

“So, we’re relying on Eddie to do something.” Bill says, and can practically hear the cringe. 

Bev sighs. “I guess we don’t have choice,”

Patty takes the phone when Mike hands it down to her, sitting on the floor with Ben. “Should Richie be alone right now? Maybe someone should go to him, just in case,”

When it’s settled, Bill, Mike, Stan, and Ben are left to plot what to say to Eddie. There was some debate on who should go to Chicago - it was between Patty, who recognizes and predicts depressive behavior well, and Beverly, who Richie is more likely to listen to rather than placate. Beverly wins out, on the basis of being a loser and that she has a better chance of being physically capable of getting a grown ass man off the floor if that’s where he is when she gets there. 

\-------

_Make the choice that you can live with._

There had been a back and forth, of course, and Bev had said way more than that, up to and including _get your shit together, we love you and don’t care if you’re into Dick,_ and _Tiffany you useless lesbian._ But that’s what had stuck with him the most, still resonating in his head. _Make the choice that you can live with._

Then it seemed like everything was falling together: someone tags Richie in a picture that has a location attached to it, a Super Walmart on West North Avenue in Illinois. Richie went home, of course he went home! Where else would he have gone? Why didn’t Eddie think of that before! He knows where Richie lives, and that’s what, a two hour $100 flight? Eddie can fucking do that!

Except, his body has other plans for him. He’s spent the last 48 plus hours wide awake, incredibly stressed out and constantly busy. His adrenaline lasts him through changing out of his pajamas and badly packing a book bag with not quite all the necessities, his suitcase already prepared for a honeymoon. He passes out fully clothed when he sits down in the living room - has this chair always been so comfortable? - to put on his shoes. 

The next thing he knows, Myra’s sister Lydia is shaking him by the shoulder. In quick succession, he learns that it’s morning, she has collected his suit and shoes, her husband is out in the driveway, and she let herself in with a key she has for some reason because he wasn’t answering his phone or the door. 

He is blearily coaxed out of the chair and into Jared’s sedan, feeling like a hostage on the way to the golf club that would be his secondary undisclosed location. Lydia even holds his phone, thinking she’s being kind as she tells him not to worry about it. 

Quietly panicking in the backseat, seeing the concerned faces of some of his actual friends meet them in the parking lot is a small breath of fresh air. It’s short lived, though. He’s more or less shoved through to the men’s dressing room, the losers huddled around him like they’re hiding him, Jared following along with garment bags and a confused expression. 

“You need to tell us what you wanna do, right now.” Mike says as the doors close on the wood-paneled room. Eddie’s friend’s converge on him, and it’s intense. He feels no less cornered with his back to a big open room than he did in the car. 

But these are his people. They survived Derry and Pennywise and just plain growing up together. Adulthood tries to separate them, but has not, and will not. They are there in a phone call, a FaceTime chat, a real ink-and-paper letter. A plane ride or road trip away when things are _this_ important. They don’t have to explain that Bev told them about him and Richie, how they know to ask him this question. 

Eddie is still tired and still scared of what people will think and still doesn’t want to hurt Myra, but he knows which decision he can live with. 

“What’s going on?” Eddie’s no-longer-future-brother-in-law asks. 

Stan rolls his eyes. “Shut the fuck up, Jared,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor jared, you were created to suffer


	5. Chapter 5

Richie did not sleep it off. Richie drank almost half of the bottle and is now sitting on his kitchen floor waiting for his microwaved ramen that he checks several times to be absolutely sure he actually put water in. Thinking about it now, he cranes his neck to confirm again. Yes. Yes he did. 

He’s just sitting there, rocking back and forth to a rhythm that is not playing, blocking out his guilt by trying to remember all the words to Africa by Toto. And he’s wiggling his torso to the whistle-y bit before the end when he remembers singing the song at the top of his lungs with Eddie at his bachelor’s party. That wasn’t the first time, not by far, but the picture of Eddie’s flushed happy face is still fresh in his mind. He can recall the weight of his best friend on his side. The weight of him on top of him. 

The microwave beeps and Richie whines. He wishes he could see Eddie, that he wouldn’t have left. Married Eddie was better than no Eddie. He should've gone back to his room, licked his wounds in private, and pretended to be cool. But no, he couldn’t do that, couldn’t possibly act like a normal person. Because he’s Richie Tozier, he has to ruin every good thing he’s ever offered. There won’t be dumb memes sent to him at the asscrack of dawn anymore, no more nostalgic song requests or ranting calls on Eddie’s lunch break, no more tight hugs when they get to see each other. 

It puts an ache in his chest. He wishes he could just hear Eddie’s voice. 

Richie heaves himself up from the floor, the counter groaning with his wait as he leans on it, and almost drops his hot ramen when he remembers, he can! 

Overly-cautious, he scoots his precious chicken ramen to the middle of the counter and then hurries to find his phone. Accidentally trashes his living room looking for it, but cradles it with care when it is revealed to be under the couch he’s just pulled the cushions off of. 

He scrolls to Eddie’s voicemail and only hesitates a little before selecting it and putting the phone to his ear. 

“Hey Rich, can you call me back? I’m sorry,” Eddie’s voice says to him, sounding tired, defeated. Richie plays it again, just to be positive that was what he heard. 

Then he just goes for it, like sober Richie would never dare to, hitting the call-back icon on the log. Eddie doesn’t pick up. 

Richie brings the phone back to his sight and frowns, his hopes built up and dashed seconds apart. It’s just past midnight at this point, Eddie is far too responsible to be awake right now. He’s getting married today. He probably did one of his super gay face masks and went to bed at like, 8PM, in matching silk pajamas with a humidifier running. 

After tossing his phone onto his cushionless couch, Richie retrieves his ramen and only cries a little while he eats it. 

He’s always been a performing, concupiscent drunk. All the way back to when Ben had that job as a dishwasher, and they’d buy cheap cooking wine off of his boss. Tucked away in the Barrens, a small bonfire and collection of blankets and ratty quilts hauled up from the clubhouse to keep them warm. Richie was a scrappy teenager with patchy facial hair and one small hoop earring, in a giant Metallica t-shirt that he could probably sell on Etsy or eBay at a massive markup these days if he still had it, cigarette-burn holes and stretched collar just bonus points for some hipster. He’d blathered about girls and told too-loud off-color jokes and sang badly. He’d tried to balance on one foot, hopping along their log benches, and was extremely content when Eddie panicked and yanked him down. There had been a half-assed scuffle until Eddie proudly plunked himself on Richie’s knees, because he didn’t trust him not to straight up jump in the fire for shits and giggles. Richie had gleefully acted as if there was  _ absolutely no way  _ he could shove Eddie off of him or just pick him up, maybe a hundred and thirty-five pounds soaking wet at that age. 

Eddie was tipsy and squirmy and his hair smelled like wood smoke, and if he felt Richie getting hard under him he didn’t say. He also didn’t stop moving, reaching for the passed bottle and turning around to look at Rich when he talked. 

If Richie knew then what he does now, which is, namely, that Eddie would have fucked him, he would’ve scooped that kid up bridal-style and run away into the woods with him. Maybe the rest of the losers would have called after them with teasing jokes, like they did when Ben and Bev left for privacy. “ _ Use protection!”, “Breathe through your nose! _ ”. 

But Richie didn’t know then what he does now, so Eddie’s gonna spend his life committing psychological incest and Richie will just shrivel up and die alone. 

He could do with some shriveling right now, as it happens. And it wouldn’t be the worst thing to wash his tear-stained face. 

Richie finishes the scrapings of broth and marches to the bathroom for a sad shower wank. 

It takes a frustratingly long time. Between the alcohol and the recent events plaguing his go-to fantasy; getting bent over and fucked hard by someone familiarly svelte who may or may not have a tacky tattoo that says “No Dice”, which Richie will never get tired of hearing the story of, he’s pretty much having to abuse his dick to get anything out of it. His asshole feels raw and battered by two of his fingers, because water isn't a great lube substitute, but he’s determined to at least finish. Eventually, it comes, reluctant, unsatisfying and pathetic. Richie leans into the water stream. It’s not hot anymore, but it’s still warm enough. He tiredly washes his hair and brushes his teeth, then turns the water off. 

Richie is not the best adult there ever was. That basically goes without saying. He doesn’t eat all that well, he doesn’t exercise unless he’s being chased, his dishes don’t match. His bath mat is funny, but not non-slip. C’est la vie. 

The words  _ will do nude scenes  _ betray him, though, crumpling under his feet. He falls out of the shower like an old ass man, hits his head on the way down, and promptly vomits. 

\-------

“I can’t get ahold of Richie anymore,” Beverly says, fresh off the plane and striding towards the cabs. 

Ben sighs on the other end of the phone. “Hopefully he’s asleep, just let yourself in when you get there. We can’t get Eddie, either.” 

“Idiots,” Bev mumbles, apologizing to the driver of the car she’s getting in. “Sorry, not you,” 

“I’m starting to think maybe we’re the idiots,” Ben laughs, “they’re both asleep and we’re up in the early hours cleaning up their mess.” 

He doesn’t know how true that is. 

Richie’s building comes into view but he’s still not answering, so Bev wishes the cab driver good night while fishing out Richie’s spare keys, which Stan had given to her. 

She opens the door to a dead silent, disheveled room. 

All the lights and the television are on. Cushions tossed aside, Richie’s phone laying on the carcass of his couch. Tequila bottle on its side on the carpet, with a used dish in the middle of the coffee table with Richie’s glasses in it.

“Richie?” Bev calls out, uneasy. 

She jumps when an answer comes in the form of a groan from down the hall. Rushing to the source, she opens the bathroom door to Richie trying to pull himself up on his toilet. He’s bare ass naked and there are puddles of vomit and  _ blood  _ on the floor. 

“Richie, what the fuck?” Beverly asks in panic, helping Rich to sit on the toilet and ripping his hand towel off the wall rack. “Where are you bleeding from?” 

Richie swallows hard, “My head, I think,” he rasps, gesturing at his mop of dark hair. It’s impossible to determine where without touching, so she just presses her entire hand to the back of his head, the beige towel immediately taking on color. Bev looks around, swinging around one handedly for a dry towel to drape over Richie’s shoulders. “You must think this is awful forward of me, Molly,” He says, waggling his eyebrows and slurring his words.

The problem with Richie is that he always talks like he’s heavily concussed. But they’re going to have to go to the hospital, just in case. 

“Shut up, Yankovic,” Beverly hisses, pushing hair out of her face and planting Richie’s own hand on his head. “Hold that while I get you some fuckin’ clothes,” 

\-------

“What do you mean, he’s in the fucking hospital?!” Eddie asks, high pitched. 

It had all been happening so fast, and now it’s screeching to a halt. Eddie chose Richie. The losers sprang into action, with Stan having already organized a few potential flights and Mike trying to fill in the spots empty in his bookbag, Bill sitting down with him to draft a quick apology for Myra. Then Ben called Beverly. 

Eddie was holding the phone, now, Ben having handed it over. 

“He’s okay, he has a mild concussion, but he’s okay,” Beverly relays tiredly. “He has like, an inch long laceration in his head. He got some staples and painkillers.” 

“What happened?!” Eddie asks, almost screeching. Beverly gives him a rundown of a tequila-drunk Richie cracking his head open falling out of the shower. “Is he awake? Let me talk to that-that….fucking asshole!” 

But he’s not awake. They don’t know when he’ll be, they want him to rest as much as he can so no one is going to wake him up.

Eddie gives Ben’s phone back numbly. “What do I do next?” He asks none of them, all of them. 

After a few minutes of silence, Jared, of all people, speaks up. “The same thing you were already going to do,” He shrugs when everyone turns to look at him, watching the drama unfold from the fancy leather couch against the wall. “Now you just have more time to plot your escape,” 

Bill nods astutely and sits back down with Eddie, from where he’d been pacing before. 

\-------

Eddie is not a writer. He is not a public speaker, or an actor. He doesn’t know how to say things gracefully. How Billy creates resolutions out of thin air when his characters need it, how Richie talks for hours about nothing at all for hundreds of people. 

When he sneaks into Myra’s suite, Jared and Patty having drawn her attendants out of the room, he doesn’t even have the script he and Bill had composed. 

_ Myra does not handle raised voices well. Yelling makes her cry. I don't want to hurt her more than I already have to. _

“You’re not dressed,” Myra interrupts his thoughts, sounding more disappointed than shocked. She’s just standing there, in her pretty floral silk robe. 

Obviously, this wasn’t a first look or anything they’d coordinated before. So he should’ve expected she would be suspicious. 

“No,” He says softly, standing in the doorway with his hands in his jacket pockets, eyes falling to the floor. He’s a good liar. Lying is simple. He lies so that he  _ doesn’t  _ hurt her. It’s so much harder to tell her the truth. “I won’t be getting dressed.” 

Myra says nothing, so he walks forward into the room. He comes to a stop at her vanity, fiddling with the little things there. A perfume bottle, a makeup bag, her pearly veil comb tacked to the mirror. 

“It’s not that I don’t care about you,” He starts, but everything gets stuck in his throat. Yes, he’s choosing Richie, who he loves more and likes better. But he does not hate Myra, was all prepared to build a life with her. He’s wasted  _ years  _ of his life, and of hers. 

Myra sniffles, and he finally looks up at her. “We’re not getting married, are we?” She asks, her mouth in a pout. Eddie shakes his head and she reaches out to him, taking his hand. He gives it, and squeezes. “Did I do something wrong?” She asks, and he tells her she didn’t. “Is there someone else?” All Eddie can do is nod, and Myra nods back, letting go of his hand and sitting down. “Do I know her?”

Eddie smiles, fraught. “You know  _ him, _ ” 

Myra lets out a little gasp, like the wind is knocked out of her, tears welling up in her eyes. Eddie kneels to hug her and they overflow, his quiet apologies not doing much to dam them, and why would they? He cries a little, too, holding her face and kissing the top of her head. 

“What am I going to do?” She asks him when they separate, “I have even less experience with men than you do,” she coughs with the smallest of smiles. 

\-------

Richie wakes up to bright lights and no pants on, again. But this time he’s not on the bathroom floor. He’s in a less than comfy hospital bed, the news playing on a television mounted in the corner of the room. The volume is low. He can hear the tap-tap-tapping of a phone keyboard somewhere to his left. 

“What time is it?” He asks aloud, expecting Beverly. 

A chair scrapes and a hand flies to his forehead. “You absolute shit,” a man’s voice snaps, and Richie painfully turns his neck. He can’t see all that well, but he knows Eddie’s doe-y brown eyes and raised brow anywhere. 

Richie stares for a moment, stunned. “Hey, dude,” he almost whispers. How long was he out? Eddie’s frowning his cute frown and softly touching his hair. Maybe he bled out and died, and this is heaven.

Eventually, in all his huffs and puffs about shower safety and drinking alone and how worried he was, Eddie hands Richie his glasses. 

“How was the wedding?” Richie asks. 

Eddie pauses for a moment, then shrugs. “I didn’t go,” He says, his smile clearly hiding pain. 

Richie frowns. Did it get called off for his emergency? “I’m sorry, I ruined everything,” He starts, and Eddie stops him. 

“No, I broke it off,” He says, and Richie draws back a little. Eddie picks at his hospital blanket, and Richie is suddenly aware of the  _ ding!  _ noise Eddie’s phone is consistently making, his phone effectively being blown up. “I couldn’t do it. I, uh,” Eds scratches the back of his neck, tentatively making eye contact. “I love you, Rich,” 

Richie’s mouth has fallen open at some point, brow furrowed in confusion. “In like a bro way or a hoe way?” He asks stupidly, and the laugh Eddie sputters out confirms it for him. “Yeah, I’m definitely dead,” 

“You’re not dead,” Eddie assures him, rolling his eyes. He gets out of his chair and pecks Richie’s lips. “When you die, it’ll be way dumber. It’ll probably involve a trampoline.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you don't hate this ending


	6. Epilogue: Did I Get Your Attention?

Four weeks and a few days later, Eddie directs Richie to the couch and orders him to sit down instead of helping move Eddie’s shit in. He hauls his boxes, of which there are few, on his own, spouting off facts about traumatic brain injuries that Richie’s heard several times over at this point. 

He’d been more than willing to take a seat and watch Eddie bend and flex and put his apartment back together for him. Richie had been terribly happy to sit in bed and let Dr. K tend to his head and twisted ankle, elated to get some help in and out of the shower onto newly purchased and very ugly non-slip bath mats, of which he now owns three for a very small bathroom. 

But that was _four weeks_ ago. 

He’s fine! The doctor said he’s fine! He’s back at work already since all he’s doing is sitting there talking! He’s on light duty with monitoring, drinking lots of water and getting lots of sleep. He can help Eddie with some damn boxes, there’s only five and they’re mostly clothes!

“Remember when we went to that concert and you sat on my shoulders like, the whole time?” Richie calls from the couch. It had been Eddie’s first, newly 18 and feeling rebellious with the promise of escape on the horizon. Eddie was still short as hell, and Richie has always been willing to suffer for his spaghetti. 

“You didn’t have a concussion then.” Eddie says without hesitation, very safely and unsexily carrying his boxes to Richie’s bedroom. Lifting with his knees, not his back, and even his squat is entirely too efficient. 

Richie makes a fart noise at that. “You’re not a doctor, you’re a crabby nurse.” 

Eddie frowns, offended. “Hey,” he complains. 

“An unprofessional one, you’re not even in the cute uniform.” Richie adds, letting his head loll back on the couch and closing his eyes. 

There’s a scoff at the end of the hall. “They don’t wear cute little uniforms anymore, you pig. They wear scrubs,” Eddie’s voice is travelling towards him, probably to grab another box. “You were _just_ in the hospital, idiot.” 

It doesn’t veer off to the side, though. When Richie looks up, Eddie’s standing right in front of him. Richie closes his eyes again, playfully knocking his knees against Eddie’s. “You could at least give me a really awkward sponge bath,” His boyfriend, because Eddie is his _boyfriend_ now, chuckles a little.

Eddie’s laugh is like a wind chime to Richie: ethereal, pretty, sometimes annoying, and sometimes suspicious. 

“Why don’t I just blow you?” 

Richie blinks, not fully following the flurry of motion that is Eddie getting down on his knees in front of him and unbuttoning his jeans for him. “Wh-what?” Richie babbles, Eddie’s hands now tugging his pants down by the waist, over his hips and to his calves. 

Palming Richie’s cock, Eddie smirks and rolls his eyes. “It’s like you get cabin fever in your own damn body if you don’t get to do something physically stupid for a few weeks.” Richie whimpers, his half-chub being pulled out into the chilly air and wrapped in Eddie’s hand. “You’ve been a good boy, though,” Eddie glances up at him through his lashes, slowly stroking Richie’s dick. “Maybe if you stay a good boy, I’ll even ride you next time.” He says, and even though the offer was made mere minutes ago, it feels like Richie’s spent an eternity waiting before Eddie actually puts his mouth on him, licking up the length of him.

Richie moans and momentarily, the seductive smoke in Eddie’s eyes clears. “I haven’t sucked a dick since college, I might be bad at it.” He warns, and Richie cracks up, which puts the fog back in Eddie’s gaze for some reason. Whatever, he’s not going to question Eddie’s particular brand of crazy anymore. 

Eddie doesn’t waste any time after that, gripping the base of Richie’s cock and giving it another long lick before diving down on it. He can’t take the entirety, lurching slightly with a gag when he tries, but recovers well and keeps his hands moving. One handles the bit of dick he can’t push his way to, the other playing with Richie’s balls. 

He slaps Richie’s hand down when his boyfriend reaches for his hair, the vacuum of his mouth popping when he pulls away. “Don’t move.” He orders, and Richie lets his hand fall with a whine. “For a trashmouth, you don’t have great dirty talk,” Eddie teases, taking his own hand away from Richie’s testicles to lay it on his thigh, effectively looking bored while the other smoothly strokes his shaft. He watches Richie for a moment, whose clamping down on his bottom lip and pleading with his eyes. It occurs to Eddie that Richie wasn’t terribly talkative the first time they had sex, either. He made a lot of general noise and had a couple words here and there but, “Did I finally find a way to shut you up?” 

Richie makes a pouty face at that, and Eddie laughs. “I need you to tell me what you want. Use your words.” He says, slowing his pace until Richie cooperates. 

“I want you to jerk off with me,” Rich eventually says, ever the people pleaser. And Eddie can’t deny him, though he does have to reject Richie’s hands again after he pulls his cock out of his pants, because they’re trying to help him out of his shirt. 

“It’s not that funny,” Eddie insists, tugging his shirt off for Rich, anticipating the comments that always come. “ _You look like Tommy Lee’s 5-year-old_ ,” usually. He was high and young and thought a tattoo would be super badass. No one ever mentions _Mike’s_ tattoo of an Old Spice bottle, and they got them together, it’s just as bad as Eddie’s _No Dice._

Richie shakes his head. “It’s hilarious. And kinda hot,” He says, deliriously. “Can I come on it?” 

“I regret what I said, just go back to moaning.” Eddie grumbles, a startled blush heating his face. Richie smiles good naturedly with a chorus of “okay, okay,” and lays back again. Eddie flexes his wrist and draws a nice groan out of Rich. Before taking him back in his mouth, before touching himself, he looks up at Richie. “Yeah, you can come on it.” 

The noise he makes is entirely worth the embarrassment. 

Stabilizing himself with the hand around Richie’s girth, elbow pressed into his hip to keep the bucking to minimum impact, Eddie circles his tongue around the head and sinks back down. He sets a faster pace now, and jerking his own cock at the same rhythm as Richie’s is making it hard to even remember to breathe. He hollows his cheeks and then releases the suction to allow saliva to dribble down Richie’s shaft, which he uses to wet a finger enough to poke into Richie’s ass.

That’s what seems to do it for Rich, because he’s reaching out to Eddie’s shoulder, obediently back to making desperate noises under him. Eddie comes up for air, taking the hand off his dick to use on Richie’s, unwilling to stop stimulating him either way. For once, he doesn’t scold Richie for moving, letting him come in close to kiss him while he comes. 

He doesn’t get a whole lot on Eddie’s tattoo, but Eddie does, Richie taking advantage of the quiet to pull him off the ground and into his lap. He fast tracks Eddie to the finish line, a heavy weight on his back that has him curling in on himself. His hands are bigger than Eddie’s, and it feels good to be covered by him, to be in his hold while he kisses and sucks the skin at his immediate disposal. Richie’s face even gets hit when his boyfriend comes, his chin fit into the crook of Eddie’s neck. 

“Very funny,” He says, smiling and breathless as Eddie laughs at him. He simply swipes the dollop off and wipes on Eddie’s chest. 

Eddie snorts with laughter. “You’re gross,” he says, as if he didn’t just have a dick in his mouth. It wasn’t even properly sanitized first. “Let’s take a shower.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted Red Lights to end with sex, but concussions  
> be like:
> 
> So this is a short bonus chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who enjoyed my first fic back!

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me, I have not written let alone published any fanfiction in like 7 years.


End file.
